Friday, June 07, 2002

So, here's what I gather about
the Bush administration proposal for a "Homeland security
department."

The problem in the runup to September 11th, it is increasingly
plain, was that the FBI and CIA had plenty of information concerning
the people and the plan, but failed to make good use of it. The
agencies failed to distribute critical information to each other, and
headquarters failed to distribute critical information to agents that
could have used it in the field.

The proposed
solution is a government reorganization which doesn't touch the
FBI and CIA, but combines other agencies including the Secret Service
(which handles counterfeiting), the Coast Guard (which handles rescue
and shore safety), Customs (which does revenue and tariff
enforcement), the INS (which issues tourist visas) and so forth into a
single agency which will focus on counterterrorism.

The intelligence problems are addressed by creating a center within
the new agency which will review intelligence gathered by other
agencies (FBI, CIA, apparently, NSA).

So --- the problem of turf wars between the FBI and CIA is dealt
with by giving them both a new agency to fight with, the problem of
information hoarding at headquarters is dealt with by establishing a
new hoard of information at headquarters, and we also improve matters
by imposing a new layer of centralized bureaucracy on agencies which
(with the possible exception of INS) didn't have much to do with the
problem.